


Don't Say It If You Don't Mean It

by emperorpenguin (dortmundbvbbabe)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Coming Out, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-22 00:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11368899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dortmundbvbbabe/pseuds/emperorpenguin
Summary: The thing is Mitch does this with everyone, he's always flirtatious, sprawled out across other players' laps so Auston shouldn't read into it. The only problem is he wants Mitch to mean it. But when Mitch goes a little too far and says something flirtatious that pushes Auston over the edge, they might not even be able to preserve their friendship.





	Don't Say It If You Don't Mean It

Unlike what the Toronto media said, Mitch and Auston weren’t immediate friends. They didn’t  _ not  _ get along either, but the instant chemistry that the media had seen in their first practice was over-exaggerated. They were friendly, but in the same way that all rookies were friendly with their new teammates. It was easier for Mitch to fit in, Auston thought. Mitch had been walking in the same Toronto social circles as the rest of the hockey players and since he was a child had grown up idolizing the Maple Leafs. Auston was glad to be a part of the Maple Leafs, but since he had played the last year in Switzerland, he didn’t know a lot of the people that Mitch knew.

At first, Auston wasn’t sure what to make of it when Mitch ended up sprawled across his lap while they were all over at Mo’s place for bonding. Nobody really made a big deal of it, though, Jake and Matt gave them quick glances, and Mo had smiled, but nobody commented on it so Auston just let Mitch stay there. After a few rounds of COD, Mitch would shift a little trying to get in a better position and his bones would grind up against Auston’s. When they rode home together, Mitch knowing the streets better than Auston did, Auston wondered if there was any meaning behind it. He considered asking Mitch about it, to see if it did mean something, but then Mitch put on that damn “Auston Matthews” song and sang along to it. 

Mitch waved his hands around at a stop light trying to rap and failing to do so, “Hit ‘em with the four like Auston Matthews.” Auston tried to keep a straight face and hoped that nobody would look into the car and recognize them. But after Mitch waved an imaginary microphone into Auston’s face to encourage him to join in, Auston rolled his eyes and rapped along. 

It was a thing they did. Mitch, without any explanation, had started picking Auston up before practices and they went to work together. Ever since that song had come out, and Mitch thought it was the best thing ever, they played it before every practice. The thing that he had with Mitch was easy. Friendship came easy for Mitch and it was easily maintained because nobody could stay mad at him for long. 

 

Then one day, he walked into the locker room and saw Mitch practically sitting on a boxer-clad Matt Martin’s lap as he showed him some dumb YouTube video. Mitch was this way with everyone. He’d jump on Zach’s back, even though Zach was only a few inches taller. Willy and Kasperi were cuddly, but only with each other and sometimes Mitch, but there was something that was obviously going on between Willy and Kasperi. It was just Mitch’s nature to be clingy and even the rather non-affectionate guys like Leo, who was affectionate, but in his own way, Mitch was affectionate. So Auston knew that no, that night at Mo’s hadn’t meant anything, Mitch was just being the way he was with everyone, he was treating Auston like a teammate, like a friend. 

But Auston didn’t quite get what the media were spinning about them until he rewatched a clip of them singing “Living on a Prayer”. Even though there was a little distance between them, they were completely in sync. Maybe it was Mitch’s good influence, but Auston had loosened up since coming to Toronto. Even though the implications of the draft and the Toronto media were that Auston was to be the “McJesus” of the Toronto Maple Leafs, he shared the burden with the other rookies. They had Zach, Mitch, Willy, Connor, and Auston and somehow, without asking they’d all taken a piece of the pressure off of Auston. 

If Auston didn’t know better he would have thought that Mitch loved him. The way he was always touching him, sitting on him, resting his legs on Auston’s lap, playing with Auston’s hair, they were all things that girls and guys who’d been interested in Auston had done. But Mitch did this all the time with Matt Martin and the others and Auston was certain that Mitch was not in love with Matt. He liked Matt and Sydney together too much to even think about getting in the middle of them.

Auston and Mo were friends. Auston and Naz were friends. Auston and Mitch weren’t friends, at least Auston didn’t want them to be. That was where the problem was. He realized this when they had their bye week and Mitch was off on vacation with Matt, because of course they vacationed together. But it was the longest time that they’d been apart since the start of the season. Even on off days they usually visited the other to play video games or at least grabbed a meal together, but the bye week had left a Mitch-sized hole in Auston’s life.

In all honesty, he didn’t come to this conclusion alone. Breyana complained that he was moping like someone who’d just been dumped except Auston hadn’t had anything close to a girlfriend or a boyfriend since he’d started playing in the season. The closest thing he had to that was… Mitch. Everybody in his family knew that he liked both girls and boys, it was no secret, at least not to anyone who mattered and Auston supposed that one day the occasion might arise that he would come out to his team, but he’d do it for something or someone serious and thus far he had yet to meet someone.

 

Even though he was sad that his time in Arizona ended, Auston couldn’t wait to see Mitch again. As planned, he arrived before their first practice to pick Auston up. 

“What?” Mitch asked after he caught Auston staring at him for a little too long.

“Hm…”

“You’re looking at me weird,” Mitch said.

“No, I’m not,” Auston said.

“Fine you’re just weird then.”

Auston playfully flipped him off. 

 

For as much as Auston tried to suppress his feelings, Mitch never allowed them to die down. He continued to sprawl out across Auston, hang out at his house and be his adorable self.

“We need to get you a girl,” Jake said when most of the younger guys had gone out to a bar after a home win. 

Auston just shrugged.

“Come on, half of Toronto would die to go out with you. Hasn’t someone caught your eye?” Matt pressed.

_ Yes. Mitch. _ Of course, Auston wasn’t going to say that though. “No, not yet.”

“Aw…I’d date you,” Mitch said as he leaned over and draped himself over Auston. There it was again. The worst part was he’d only had one beer to drink and was almost completely sober. But Mitch always said these things. He was always saying this dumb shit and everyone allowed him to because he was Mitch. If anyone noticed the change in Auston’s demeanor they didn’t mention it, but Auston extricated himself from Mitch’s hold and made a lame excuse about going to the bathroom to get away for a while. It didn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything. 

  
  


“Don’t say… don’t say stuff like that,” Auston said on the ride home when they were just a few minutes away from his apartment.

“Like what?” Mitch asked as he hummed along to the radio.

“Like that’d you’d date me.”

“Why?” Mitch asked.

“Just…don’t,” Auston said.

“Why though? What did I do wrong?” Mitch asked.

“Nothing, Jesus, just people might get the wrong impression.”  
“The wrong impression…” Mitch said flatly. 

“Don’t make me say it,” Auston said.

“I think you should,” Mitch said challenging Auston.

“The impression that you like me,” Auston said.

“So you have a problem with gay guys,” Mitch said in a tone dripping with disgust. 

“No, no, that’s not the issue,” Auston said.   
“Get out of the car,” Mitch said.

“No, I’m not homophobic,” Auston said, trying to clarify. God, this had all gone wrong. All he had wanted was for Mitch not to touch him like that, because to Mitch, that was just being Mitch, but to Auston it was flirting and Auston wanted it to be flirting. “Just it seemed like you were flirting with me…” Auston said a bit timid about it. 

“As shocking as it might be, not everyone in the city is in love with the ‘Great Auston Matthews’.” 

Auston’s heart sank. “I know…”

“But I didn’t think you were such an asshole either.”  
“I’m not-”

“Just get out, Auston,” Mitch said leaving no room for Auston to explain. 

 

Auston tried to text Mitch that night, but his attempts went unanswered. When Mo came to pick Auston up the next day, Auston knew he was in a lot of trouble. “Mitch had something to do earlier,” was the only explanation that Mo offered up.

“Thanks,” Auston said even though riding in the car with Mo was vastly different than riding in the car with Mitch. He even missed hearing that dumb song on the radio.

 

Mitch wasn’t warm to Auston at practice, in fact, he went out of his way to avoid Auston and hung around Matt as if Matt was his bodyguard. He was still smiling and clinging to the other guys, but made sure to not do it to Auston, which is what Auston had requested. The absence of Mitch’s presence was even worse though because having some Mitch in his life was better than none at all. Matt glared at him occasionally and Auston knew that Mitch had told him about what happened, but he didn’t know how to fix it.

 

Every time he tried to approach Mitch to talk about it, Mitch excused himself to get away from the situation. It wasn’t that Auston was homophobic, he just wanted Mitch to stop leading him on. But in Mitch’s world, it wasn’t leading people on. Mitch was just clueless and Auston had ended up hurting him. There was only one idea that he had left after trying everything to talk to Mitch. 

“Um, sorry, I just, there’s something I have to say, if that’s okay,” Auston said. Everyone heard the nervousness in his voice and stopped getting changed to listen to him. Even Mitch turned with concern etched over his face and Auston appreciated the temporary truce in their fight. “Um, I’m bi, so, uh, yeah, I guess I just thought you all should know it.”  
For a moment the locker room was silent before Willy just rolled his eyes and looked at Kasperi, “Dude, it’s no big deal in Scandinavia.”

“Well, uh, thanks,” Auston said. 

He catches Mitch’s gaze for a moment and sees something soft and fond that Auston’s been missing.

“Sorry, man, I should have just assumed,” Matt said, “We’ll find you a guy or a girl.”

“Thanks.”

 

“You didn’t need to come out,” Mitch said when he was the last to stay after everyone said congratulatory comments and tacitly showed their approval. He wasn’t happy, but his tone was noticeably warmer than the last time they’d talked.

“I didn’t know how else to prove that I wasn’t homophobic.”

“I guess, I overreacted in the car, I should have listen to you,” Mitch said, “I just thought that was a really homophobic thing to say and that sucked because we’re friends and I thought you’d be cool with me being gay.”  
“I didn’t know,” Auston said, even though his heart sank. It was easier to know he had no chance with Mitch as long as Mitch was straight. “But I am okay with it, God, how could I not be, you’re our Mitch.” 

“So what happened at the bar?” Mitch said. “It was just me, then, that you didn’t like doing that.”

“No! Yes, look, it just seemed like you were flirting with me,” Auston said.

“Jesus, I do that stuff with everybody,” Mitch said.

“I know, and I guess, it was just getting harder to remind myself that there was no meaning behind it,” Auston said. 

“Wait, what?” Mitch asked. 

“That’s why I just wanted you to tone it down, not stop completely, but just let me get over you. And I know it won’t make things awkward between us, I just, you know, needed a little space.”

“I’m so confused,” Mitch said, “You like me?”

Auston nodded, unable to look at Mitch, “and I’ll get over you this summer I just-”

Mitch pinned Auston against the wall and kissed him.

“Stop, stop, see if you don’t mean it, it just kind of messes with me.”

“What if I do mean it?” Mitch asked.

“What?”  
“What if I meant what I said at the bar?” Mitch asked.

“Did you?” 

“Yeah, I just didn’t think that was a possibility,” Mitch said.

Auston let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, “I really wanted you to mean it. I wanted it to be different for me than it was for the others.”

Mitch smiled and Auston knew why he fell for him in the first place. “Of course you’re different, you’re  _ my  _ Auston.”

“Your Auston? Shouldn’t you take me out first?” Auston asked as he leaned in to kiss Mitch again.  

“That can be arranged,” Mitch said. 


End file.
